I'm in the middle of booking tickets for our October/November trip across India. I had a few problems with the payment gateway initially but thought I had them sorted.

Went to book NDLS - Secunderabad today and found that the system seems to have changed somewhat. Now they want a verification code - one of these funny looking graphic numbers and letters - before you get to enter payment details. Sometimes this just didn't turn up and a "refresh image" didn't work either. When I did get through I found that Axis Payment Gateway now does not accept overseas cards.

Same is happening to me. A few weeks back Axis was completely vanished but came back after a few days. I got an e-mail from irctc stating that there had been a technical problem.

And now Axis is no longer accepting International cards. Citi seems to be the only paygate accepting International cards but they keep on rejecting my card. Don't know if this is temporary or permanent but I think I'll have a look at cleartrip as well.

Even I faced problem in paying through IRCTC normal website. After filing up everything including the verification code when I hit go then it used to show plan my trip page instead of the payment gateway page. After facing problems for some time I used their Beta version (The link is on their home page below the login window)which worked fine with Axis payment gateway.

I just tried every gateway there is and although the transaction goes through when it returns to IRCTC, there is always an error. If this had happened when I was just starting this trip, I would have given up!

International Credt Cards and the IRCTC

When I was using the Axis payment gateway the other day, a message immediately popped up after I had entered the credit card details and had clicked on the "buy" button. The content of the message: "International Cards are not allowed; Please try only Domestic Cards".

Regarding the other payment gateways, the transaction process continued after I had entered the credit card details and had clicked on the "buy" button. I was even directed to the website of the bank having issued my credit card and I was asked for the SecureCode. In the end, however, the transaction was not completed and I got error messages which were far-fetched and pulled down by the hair. I've posted them in another thread: Indian TRAIN

The following link, I think, suggests as well that they currently decline all international credit cards for online bookings with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation: https://www.irctc.co.in/payment.html .

It's probably posted somewhere on this forum but I missed it - apparently you can only book starting at 8:00 am Indian time on the first day the tickets go on sale - 90 days prior to your date.

It also took me a while to figure out that 90 days means 90 days LOL. I was thinking three months (i.e. August 11 for a November 11 departure) but that's not the case.

And I had a glitch with American Express. I had called them a couple of days ago to alert them that I will be making online purchases on India Railways, and I was assured that there would be no problem. Not! The first time I tried to purchase, it didn't go through, and Amex sent me an email to call them re: suspicious activity on my account. After I cleared it with them, I was able to start all over and purchase my ticket.

Hope I don't run into the same problem when I buy my next ticket tonight!